Well-written, compelling, blah blah blah. I'm sick of books about affairs and divorce.

I really need to see the movie An Education. Nick Hornby was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, and the critics thought he did a pretty fine job. I also heard that his YA novel, Slam was fine. I'd like to see Hornby doing a fine job because I've pretty much given up on him.

I loved Fever Pitch; it is part of my personal mythology (I am an Arsenal fan, and it is very nearly a bible to Gooners). I also loved High Fidelity: slacker, music loving greatness. But since that brace of excellence, Hornby has been on a poor run of form.

His lowest point, for me, is How to Be Good. I am not usually one to be too critical of derivative works, believing as I do that the bulk of writing is derivative of something, but what I can't stand is an author who derives material from himself. Everything he does here is something he's done better somewhere else.

He did the miserable bastard and music appreciation better in High Fidelity, where he also did relationships better. He did middle aged, male redemption better, though not much better, in About a Boy. And he wrote much, much better in Fever Pitch even if it was his first book.

For a man who loves to joke with plenty of bitterness that he'll never win the Booker Prize, he sure produces plenty of drivel (come to think of it, maybe he'll win the Booker Prize anyway. Drivel seems to work).

I'm probably not being fair, but I've really loved Hornby's work, and I want to love it again. It's sorta like being an Arsenal fan right now. I love Wenger and what he brought to the club, but another transfer window has past and we've still got Almunia in net and Wenger's talking up the same old crap: "youth," "belief," "patience."

Fuck all that. I want a trophy this season. And I want Nick Hornby to get back to "being good" himself, not just writing about some wanker and his experiment with the homeless.

This book made me realise how important it is to read a book's customer reviews before committing to read it. There's so many novels I want to read, and just not enough time to read all of them! If I'd done my research on this book I would have (hopefully) heeded the warnings about the lack of plot, the insufficient ending and the indifference a lot of readers feel towards the characters.

I look for books which completely draw me into their world, where I get so drawn into the character's life and their problems that before I know it I'm on the last page and genuinely care about the conclusion of the whole thing... While reading this I kept finding myself being very conscious of the fact that the author was trying to write from a female perspective, and even though I can't fault his attempt, I was just left wondering why?! Maybe it was intentional to put such an ordinary and bleak story on paper, as it is the life that so many people find themselves living? But surely a novel needs a positive life-affirming message, or at the very least it needs to be entertaining... With How To Be Good, I was left feeling as though the book was completely pointless and wasn't any better off for reading it.

The writing itself seemed aimless at many points, and although there were a few gems of insight into life today, most of the dialogue and narration seemed contrived and unrealistic. It's a shame because I had really high hopes for this book - Nick Hornby's High Fidelity is one of my all-time faves.

I found this book much harder to read than it should have been due to the style of the protagonist's narrative. I found her lengthy, self reflective internal monologues boring and verging on self absorbed. I thought nothing really happened in the plot and some important questions were left unanswered (eg how did goodnews actually heal people?).

On the positive side I thought that it began to explore some interesting ideas about what it means to be 'good' in today's society, however I didn't think it did much to offer a resolution or really explored the theme as completely as it could have done. There were times when I laughed out loud, but despite this I found it a struggle to finish.

Hornby's best novel, imo.

I bought this book maybe 6 years ago, after reading and loving High Fidelity and About a Boy. I read 100 pages or so, and put it down. A friend recently said she loved it, so I went back to give it another shot. It is, after all, about moral ambiguity and the search for a good life. That has always been one of my favorite topics. Once I got back into it, though, I remembered the things I disliked about it in the first place, namely:

1. I don't like any of the characters, major or minor, and I would not want to spend any time with any of them.

2. The major development in the story seems false and unrealistic to me.

3. The main character's search for morality is really just an attempt to look like a good person to the people around her.

There are some funny parts, but the highlight of the story for me was a cameo by a character from High Fidelity. In other words, it would have been much more enjoyable if I had simply read that again.

This book made me sad. It was really, really depressing. In fact, so much that it actually put me in a bad mood while I was reading it.

Don't get me wrong; there were flashes of humor, clever writing, and certainly it begs a lot of introspection. But it was a real downer. None of the hope of "About a Boy", and although I haven't read "High Fidelity", I've seen that movie, and I think that had hope too.

So here's what I started writing after the first section for BBC last Saturday:

"How to be Good" isn't exactly a cheery book yet, is it, and frankly those in attendance were wondering if the notes on the cover ("Hilarious", "Such a zip to read", and "Breezily hilarious") were about this book or another. However, it also offered up quite a bit of fodder for discussion. For starters, we were very interested that it's a male author and this is from the female point of view, especially because of our knowledge of "High Fidelity" and "About a Boy". It's also interesting given the question she asks her son "do you think of me as the mummy or the daddy", and her perspective on being the primary breadwinner.

None of us got "GoodNews", or his place, nor his healing powers. We also discussed giving to charity, and her views about her position as a doctor.

I found this commentary so insightful that I was hooked from the bottom of the first page:

I can describe myself as the kind of person who doesn't forget names, for example, because I have remembered names thousands of times and forgotten them only once or twice. But for the majority of people, marriage-ending conversations happen only once, if at all. If you choose to conduct yours on a mobile phone, in a Leeds car park, then you cannot really claim that it is unrepresentative, in the same way that Lee Harvey Oswald couldn't really claim that shooting presidents wasn't like him at all. Sometimes we have to be judged by our one-offs. (emphasis mine)

A sentence I wish I had written, and maybe one of the ones those cover blurbs was referring to, is "I can now see, for the first time, just how many worms a can holds, and why it's not a good idea to open one under any circumstances."

And then there's Katie's honesty, "My conversation with Molly has made it impossible for me not to think, even though not-thinking is currently my favorite mode of being." I totally get this -- when I'm upset, "not-thinking" is what I'd rather do any minute of the day. How is Hornby able to write a female character who thinks so similarly to the way I do?

And then there's this. Honestly? It's just one of many reasons why we didn't have kids.

And the other thing I think is that I have failed my daughter. Eight years old, and she's sad ... I didn't want that. When she was born I was certain I could prevent it, and I have been unable to, and even though I see that the task I set myself was unrealistic and unachievable, it doesn't make any difference: I have still participated in the creation of yet another confused and fearful human being.

Here's something I thought interesting, at the top of 221, when David and GoodNews are working on "reversal", and "GoodNews says excitedly, 'That's what we're doing! Building an ideal world in our own home!'

An ideal world in my own home ... I'm not yet sure why the prospect appalls me quite so much..."

I know why it bothers her so much! Because GoodNews is calling their home "ours"!

Last, I found this ... well, thought-provoking: When I look at my sins (and if I think they're sins, then they are sins), I can see the appeal of born-again Christianity. I suspect that it's not the Christianity that is so alluring; it's the rebirth. Because who wouldn't wish to start all over again?

In thinking through my final thoughts on this book, and my preference for hope in books, I would have been happy with the ending of this book if it had ended one sentence earlier. That is, I'd have removed the last sentence before publishing it.

Minus one star for the ending but boy does Nick Hornby know how to make a girl chuckle

She's a good doctor, a good mom, a good wife...well, maybe not that last one, considering she's having an affair. Events take a turn when David stops being "The Angriest Man In Holloway" and begins to be "good" with the help of his spiritual healer/guru,
DJ GoodNews.

Katie isn't sure if this is a deeply-felt conversion, a brain tumor—or David's most brilliantly vicious manipulation, because she's finding it more and more difficult to live with David the “do gooder”—and with herself.

I think "How to be Good" certainly divided fans of Hornby who were used to his musical themes in High Fidelity and 31 Songs and his style in About a Boy. He was given a lot of criticism for writing the book from the perspective of a middle aged female but this did not bother me in the slightest. In fact I thought the book was witty and well written. I found myself identifying with Katie, despite her whiny repetitive moments. I loved her inner voice - I found things written on the page that I have never heard expressed before and believed only existed in the deepest recesses of peoples supressed innner life. I think Hornby is a master at capturing these secret inner lives we lead. The book was not predictable or trite or a simple comedy of manners and it dealt with a subject I have been very interested in, and have been reevaluating of late. So in short - I loved it.

I don't think it's a great sign when you put down a book after you've finished it and feel completely and utterly relieved that it's finally over. Forget about that final line and that fact that I didn't care enough (or am obviously not clever enough) to deduce any meaning from the sudden, jarring throat punch of a ending sentance.

Nick Hornby in undeniably a brilliant writer and I have enjoyed many of his books. In this he shows many of those positive qualities in his wit, his intelligence, his deft observations, his wonderfully barmy (and aptly named in this case, Brian) cameo characters and his willingness to make his characters, especially his antagonists, wholly unlikable.

Yes, he shows off all these aspects, but it doesn't change that as a whole I just didn't really like this book. In fact, in this particular instance, I'm hard pressed to find any of the parts I did enjoy.

A shame, but doesn't change the fact the Hornby has written many books I have enjoyed, and I will continue to read more. I just hope this is anomaly!

Nick Hornby is super funny, and always easy to read. I liked this one. Although, if you want answers to the questions of how to be good, of what a happy marriage should look like, of what our moral responsibilities are as middle-class citizens ... you won't find them here. Hornby is just as confused as everyone else, and so it ends up being a sort of perplexing and vaguely maddening read. But. I just think that I would like Nick Hornby. Even though this book asks uncomfortable questions of its readers -- i.e. do we have a moral duty to live just within our means and give up all frivolities in the name of the greater good?? If we have a spare room, is it our responsibility to open our doors to those on the street?? Or is it enough to just focus on those in your nuclear family, even if it isn't fair, even if others are suffering?? -- it's still somehow funny, and earnest, and comforting. Life is complicated and certainly never fair, and I guess it's nice to read about a character who ultimately finds refuge from these harsh realities in a Discman and half an hour of uninterrupted reading-time a day. Maybe we don't have to lead rich, beautiful lives like Virginia Woolf's sister. Maybe we can find a good life in music and a book and rainstorms and some other mundane, beautiful things. Or maybe that's not enough -- but Katie thinks it is, and I think that's okay with me.

I would recommend this one!
C u next time (or year) :)